The Fade's Chalice Runneth Over
by Unspeakableheart
Summary: Chapters loosely following the main plotline of Dragon Age: Inquisition, with my own embellishments. Rating M for future scenes.
1. Blinding

Pain. The most vivid memory was blinding, searing agony. And running.

My world had become engulfed by harsh, jagged stones, a swirling, green sky, and grotesque creatures desperate for my blood. The entirety of my being before this moment was gone. I ran, without guidance or destination—there was no other option. I fled for what seemed an eternity. Through clouded streams, over sharp outcroppings, dusty plains—a landscape seemingly void of any established presence, human or otherwise. There was no safe haven to turn to. No possibility of rescue.

As the horde drew ever closer, the remaining ground before me grew smaller. Unknowingly, I had chosen the worst possible option: a dead end. My mind, empty, save that of pain, confusion, and despair, reeled against the inevitable conclusion that I would die in this place, alone. As my back pressed against a stony wall, however, I noticed a sound that was not merely emanating from my own fragmented mind. I whipped my head upwards to notice a female figure, completely encompassed in a pale, golden light.

"Climb, quickly, if you wish to live!" it exclaimed. Desperately, I grasped at whichever stony surface allowed me purchase and began my ascent. The waves of spider-like demons that hounded me, however, were not so easily dissuaded. I could hear the scratching of their massive appendages and gnashing of their jaws become ever closer. As I approached the glowing woman, she outstretched her hand to pull me onto a narrow ledge. As I rose to my feet, my eyes locked onto the anomaly behind her. A writhing, tortuous, emerald gash in the fabric of reality stared back at me. But at that moment, who was I to say what was real and what wasn't?

"Quickly, through the rift!" the voice echoed. I stared intently at the brilliant anomaly before me, and with one final glance back at the demons that sought to end my existence, I followed her command.

For a brief moment, I was engulfed by warmth and pale light. I felt weightless, and serene. But this calm was not to stay.

As quickly as the tranquility had enveloped me, it cast me back onto solid ground. My body slammed into the rocky earth, eliciting a gasp of pain from my lungs. As I opened my eyes, I was surrounded by a harsh terrain similar to what I had escaped—prompting an initial panic that I had not actually escaped at all—but then my gaze refocused onto the sky above me. I noticed the moon and a galaxy full of stars—something that had been conspicuously absent from the purgatory I had emerged from. The fist strangling my heart eased its grasp as I genuinely believed for the first time that evening that my life might not, after all, be forfeit.

And, it was in this moment, that the razor-sharp point of a sword came to rest an inch away from my eyes.


	2. Aria

"Please, I don't understand what is happening! I had nothing to do with this!" I pleaded, desperately. The human soldiers half-escorting, half-dragging me by the shoulders merely rolled their eyes in disgust.

"At least tell me where we are going?" I entreated.

"You are going to rot in the deepest, darkest hole we can find, elf, until Seeker Cassandra sees fit to do with you otherwise," the guard on my right sneered. The way he spat out the word "elf," like it was something that left an unpleasant taste in his mouth, made the confusion and fear embed itself under my skin like it was something living. Whatever dream of rescue I had afforded myself was transforming into a nightmare before my very eyes. I resigned myself to silent panic as the soldiers continued to drag my limp body towards a small caravan. The rapid, half-formed thoughts in my brain churned relentlessly, like a swarm of agitated hornets. Nothing made sense as to why I was being carted off at swordpoint. If anything, I thought I would be offered help after what I had managed to escape. I clung to the singular, faint spark of hope that this 'Seeker Cassandra' would be more amenable to reason than her underlings, and understand that the only thing I was guilty of was barely escaping my own demise.

As we approached the convoy, I felt my skin burn as the eyes of a dozen soldiers tracked my every move. Despite the silence, the tension in the air was cloyingly palpable. Upon reaching our destination, the humans unceremoniously cast me into a jail wagon. A harsh gasp of air rushed out between my teeth as the solid oak floor cracked against my already battered bones. Even still, I almost welcomed the security afforded by the wrought-iron bars separating myself from the rest of the procession. A few moments later, I felt the slight lurch of movement as the horses began to pull the cart away from where I harshly re-entered this world.

XXXXXX

The soldiers did not lie, when they had promised to seal me in the deepest, darkest hole at their disposal. My cramped cell offered no opening to the outside world of its own, and the walls were damp from the weeping stone. The only light that seeped through the unforgiving metal bars was from a lonely pair of torches in the antechamber outside my four walls. Even though I could see other cells around the perimeter of the open room, my attempts to make contact with another living being were met with only echos. I was really and truly alone.

The silence, however, allowed me to start piecing together the fragmented shards of my mind. I could remember running through the hellish world of demonspawn and desolation-but not how I came to be there. The gaping emptiness of the hole in my unconsciousness deeply unsettled me. Like water rushing to fill a hole dug in the sand, however, earlier memories began to flood to the forefront of my mind.

My name was Aria Lavellan. I was a Dalish elf, born in the depths of the Emerald Graves. As was the way of my people, I never remained in one place for very long. I had always enjoyed my nomadic lifestyle and the sense of freedom that it had embodied. From an early age, it was apparent that my affinity towards the arcane would lead me to become a mage. I was fortunate that amongst my people magic was treated with respect, rather than fear. I could not say the same of the humans I came into contact with when trading at various cities throughout Thedas.

Suddenly, the gateway to the dungeon flung open, blinding my eyes with impossible brightness and casting the human figure in the doorway in silhouette.

"So, here is the epicenter of all our troubles," uttered the figure.


End file.
